Migrants in hiding as Mauritania pushbacks drastically cut Europe arrivals

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Note: Al Jazeera is withholding some details of interviewees, such as surnames, to protect their identities.

Nouakchott, Mauritania – In her dimly lit apartment in a quiet suburb of Nouakchott, Francina folded up laundry scattered on a low bed in the corner. Insects gathered on the floor.

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A native of the Republic of Congo, the 23-year-old has been on the road – alone – for as long as she can remember. She was first displaced after her parents were killed in a bloody conflict in Congo, after which she fled to Mali, where a fellow Congolese housed her. When the woman who welcomed her died, however, she was forced onto the streets.

When Francina arrived in neighbouring Mauritania in 2023, things were steady at first.

She felt welcomed by friendly locals and landed a hostess job in the capital. But early last year, police officials in white buses began approaching people who “looked like” migrants on the streets, grabbing and detaining them to be deported, she said.

“Now, we can’t go out,” she told Al Jazeera. “Sometimes we ask people who have papers to go and buy bread for us.

“[The police] already caught me twice, and they asked me to pay 25,000 Mauritanian ouguiya [$623] each time. That’s too costly for me.”

She is one of four people in Nouakchott who told Al Jazeera they fear being deported or worry about having to pay bribes amid a mass deportation campaign by the government. They have resorted to hiding in the shadows in a country they once felt welcome in, sneaking out at dusk and creeping back in the dark.

Rights groups, including a United Nations expert panel, have raised concerns about the legality of arrests and forced deportations under international refugee law. Some have accused authorities of complicating the process of obtaining legal papers intentionally by delaying procedures to limit the number of those who can stay.

Al Jazeera has contacted police and government officials in Mauritania for a response.

Authorities have in the past said they are targeting only undocumented people.

Typically, migrants are rounded up and deported without notice, with some unable to take their valuables with them. Mauritanian media have reported that hundreds of deportations of undocumented migrants took place in 2025, as well as of people whose permits had expired.

Human Rights Watch, citing government figures, said 28,000 people were “expelled” in the first six months of 2025. Al Jazeera was unable to verify that figure independently.

‘We need them here’

Aicha, a Sierra Leonean, told Al Jazeera that officers grabbed her at a market in February. She was then driven by police over to the border with Senegal, despite having a legal stay permit to work in Mauritania, she said.

The officers seized her phone and asked her to pay a bribe, but she refused, she said, hoping her documents would protect her. She has since found her way back to Mauritania, but goes out only when she needs to.

Others arrested by the police, including in their own homes, have reportedly been beaten in detention and said their valuables were stolen.

Some locals are angry at the crackdown. Scores of young migrants used to line the capital’s wide streets offering cheap services as plumbers or electricians, or selling everyday items. But most have now disappeared.

“We need them here,” one business owner who employs documented and irregular migrants said.

Migrant departures from Mauritania plummet

Mauritania, a vast, sparsely populated desert country of just 4.5 million, sprawls on the edge of Northwest Africa.

It is relatively near the Canary Islands, a Spanish enclave closer to Africa than to Europe, making it a popular departure point for migrants braving the deadly Atlantic route that runs down to the Guinean coast.

In 2023, the number of migrants leaving Mauritania rose to a record. About 80 percent of the 7,270 people who arrived in the Canaries in January 2024 travelled from Mauritania, migrant advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (CF) noted in a report.

Tensions in the Sahel region, from Mali to Niger, where coups and attacks by various armed groups have prompted some to migrate and forced hundreds from their homes, have increased.

In Mauritania, officials have blamed trafficking gangs and scaled up arrests of suspects since last year.

On April 16, the police said they arrested members of two networks, including Mauritanians and people from a “neighbouring country”. Officials also arrested 12 people in a boat bound for the Canaries.

In a bid to halt the flow of migrants, the European Union has sent funds to Mauritania, Niger and Morocco to support measures that dissuade undocumented people from boarding rickety boats that often capsize.

Niger’s role as Europe’s Sahara guard, however, collapsed when the military seized power in a coup in 2023 and unseated the pro-Europe democratic government. Niamey has since turned away from its former Western allies to Russia.

In February 2023, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen visited President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in the Mauritanian capital to sign a 210-million-euro ($235m) “migrant partnership agreement” – a deal the EU said was to intensify “border security cooperation” with Frontex, the EU border agency, and dismantle smuggler networks. The bloc has since delivered two other packages: $100m focused on Mauritania’s economic growth, social cohesion, and migrant management, as well as an additional 4 million euros ($4.49m) in humanitarian aid.

Mauritania appears to have been “pretty effective” as migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands from the country dropped by more than 80 percent between April and December 2025 compared with the previous year, said Hassan Ould Moctar, a lecturer at the United Kingdom’s SOAS University of London and author of After Border Externalisation.

“For Mauritania, this is about a security issue, but it’s also about where its interests converge with those of the European Union,” Moctar said, explaining that Mauritania is keen on keeping crime numbers low through surveillance.

However, removing undocumented migrants has often not yielded those results, he said.

“From my research, I’ve seen that [to] avoid overlaps between irregular migration and crime, [countries should improve] the conditions of entry and residence so that you don’t push people into the underground economy,” he said.

“If you make it hard for people, there will be more blurred lines between migration … Routes are rerouted; they are never prevented. So they are doing something that tends to be counterproductive.”

Blending in for survival

Mohamed, a 41-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker, had lived in Mauritania for about four years before the police arrests began.

He first fled to Togo after the rise of the armed group Boko Haram.

He had studied in an informal Islamic school in Nigeria’s Borno State, where Boko Haram originated, with some of the group’s members and fled when they began pressuring him to join them, he said.

As a Muslim, he found his way to Mauritania, hoping to settle in a place where most follow his faith. Although Mohamed registered himself at the Mauritanian office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), he said his documents have still not been processed and that he too has been arrested despite explaining his situation.

“Whether you are an asylum seeker or not, they don’t care,” Mohamed, who works at a small private school, told Al Jazeera. He said he was detained along with several others in an unkempt room where daily prayers were impossible. The guards offered them poorly cooked food, he said. It was only after a friendly local he knew bribed the police that he was released.

He now tries to “blend in” with the locals to avoid arrest by wearing the typical flowing boubou robe over a button-down shirt and oiling his normally textured hair into a sleek finish.

“If I don’t do this, there’s no guarantee that I will get home today,” Mohamed said, accusing authorities of arresting people based on their skin colour and nationality. “They don’t arrest the fair Malians because they are the same.”

As people like him try to find new ways to survive in Mauritania, migrants are also innovating.

Moctar, the researcher, said more are now leaving from The Gambia and Guinea, which are further down the coast. Boat journeys from those countries are lengthier and therefore more dangerous.

Even Francina, who remains in Nouakchott, is looking for an open door.

“My dream is to be a doctor one day,” she said. Although currently working a low-skilled job in Nouakchott, she said her career dreams give her a daily boost.

“If I find a way out, to get to Canada or America or Europe, I will take it.”